Statistics of consumption in Roxbury : read before the Norfolk District Medical Society of Massachusetts, at the Annual Meeting, May 17th, 1854 / (printed by vote of the Society) ; by B. E. Cotting ; with an appendix.

  • Cotting, Benjamin Eddy, 1812-1897.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statistics of consumption in Roxbury : read before the Norfolk District Medical Society of Massachusetts, at the Annual Meeting, May 17th, 1854 / (printed by vote of the Society) ; by B. E. Cotting ; with an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    since, except a mild inflammation of one of the wrists, which has not quite departed. A thorough examination of her chest, while writing this account, gives no indication whatever of tubercular or other disease of the lungs. She assures us that she has never had anything of the kind. XVI.— Is the disease communicable from one to another in any way? The records fail us on this point. As far as can be ascertained, the circumstances generally relied on to prove a disease communicable or really infectious, are wanting, or so equivocal in these cases that any de- duction from them would be unsafe. XVII.— What is the best treatment ? There is probably no fact in medicine more thoroughly established than the occasional suspension of actual tubercular development, and even the perfect cicatrization of the diseased surfaces after the softening pro- cess has supervened. That such instances are more common than is generally credited, is also very probable. We occasionally meet with them in our limited experience ; and morbid anatomists make frequent mention of their occurrence. Rokitansky, the celebrated pathologist of Vienna, asserts, without qualification, that tuberculous pulmonary con- sumption is unquestionably curable, as we may infer from the appearances not unfrequently observed in the dead bodies of persons who formerly had more or less thoracic affections, and subsequently recovered.— Vol. IV., p. 116. The question of treatment, therefore, is not always what will best smooth the downward passage to the grave, but what course will be most probably followed by recovery or a prolongation of life. It should be borne in mind that there are possibly two forms of tuber- cle (the gray and the yellow, interstitial granulations and infiltrated tubercle), having different origins, different methods of development, and distinct sites or points of departure. The former has its location in the parenchyma of the lungs ; the latter in the cavities of the air-cells. The one in its development has a greater affinity to an inflammatory pro- cess ; the other to a specific affection. This distinction, the history, ex- ternal characteristics, and symptoms (both physical and rational), may sometimes differentially indicate, but not always. Indeed, the mooted question of the specific or inflammatory origin of tubercle, though less bruited than formerly, has not yet been decided. The former now finds